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Pseudocoordination in Danish
(2007)
In this paper we propose an analysis of Danish pseudocoordination constructions. The analysis is based on a hybrid phrase hierarchy where phrase types are assumed to be subtypes of types that cut across the traditional division of phrasal types, allowing the phrase type of pseudocoordinations to be a subtype of both coordinate phrases and headed phrases, and consequently inherit properties from both types. The analysis is linearization-based. We further develop a set of constraints on the phrasal types in the hierarchy.
The hybrid phrase hierarchy and the set of constraints on the various types in the hierarchy explain why, on the one hand, pseudocoordinations contain conjunctions and the conjuncts must have the same form and tense, and on the other, have a fixed order, allow extraction out of the second conjunct, do not allow overt subjects in the second conjunct and allow transitive verbs to appear in there-constructions.
Three distinctions seem relevant for the scope properties of adverbs: their function (adjuncts or complements), their prosody (incidental or integrated) and their lexical semantics (parenthetical or non parenthetical). We propose an analysis in which the scope of French adverbs is aligned with their syntactic properties, relying on a view of adjuncts as loci for quantification, a linearization approach to the word order, and an explicit modelling of dialogue.
A two-week perturbation EMA-experiment was carried out with palatal prostheses. Articulatory effort for five speakers was assessed by means of peak acceleration and jerk during the tongue tip gestures from /t/ towards /i, e, o, y, u/. After a period of no change speakers showed an increase in these values. Towards the end of the experiment the values decreased. The results are interpreted as three phases of carrying out changes in the internal model. At first, the complete production system is shifted in relation to the palatal change, afterwards speakers explore different production mechanisms which involves more articulatory effort. This second phase can be seen as a training phase where several articulatory strategies are explored. In the third phase speakers start to select an optimal movement strategy to produce the sounds so that the values decrease.
This paper discusses a non-constituent coordination construction that occurs in Russian in which constituents with different syntactic functions and different thematic roles are conjoined. These conjuncts are co-arguments of the same head and are subject to a number of idiosyncrasies.
We consider several alternative analysis of the phenomena, and conclude that these are unable to account for the full range of the facts. Thus, even though these conjuncts do not form a semantic unit, there is evidence that they do form a kind of coordination structure. The phenomena are challenging for any theory of grammar, but the syntax-semantics account that we provide involves minimal changes to standard HPSG architecture.
This paper provides a background on the role of world knowledge in disambiguating modals and proposes treating the disambiguation of counterfactuals as a slightly more tractable sub-case of the general problem. Using a model theoretic possible worlds approach, counterfactuals are disambiguated with respect to a world of evaluation resembling classic Formal Semantic treatments (e.g., Kratzer 1977, 1981, 1989; Lewis 1973; Veltman 2005). The world, which provides a context of evaluation, is located through the interaction of the antecedent and consequent propositions with world knowledge axioms. This approach to modal disambiguation provides a connection between a grammar and the type of inferences typically handled in Knowledge Representation Systems (e.g., Hobbs et al. 1990) in a limited domain. The model theoretic semantics are linked with typed feature structures in an HPSG syntax (Pollard and Sag 1994). This grammar is implemented in TRALE, Penn's (2004) Prolog-based framework for typed feature structure grammar development. The compositional semantics in TRALE is specified in Penn and Richters' (2004, 2005) Constraint Language for Lexical Resource Semantics (CLLRS). This semantic component provides a semantic parse in which heads and arguments are combined systematically and the scope of negation or quantification can be accurately reflected. In the case of counterfactuals, the CLLRS semantic parse is passed to a model-theoretic interpreter. The mapping between the CLLRS semantic parse and the well-formed formulas of the model is defined by checking the parseability of the formula in the compositional semantics. Sets of possible worlds interact with constraints on world knowledge and constraints defining counterfactual validity. The truth value for a counterfactual is returned to the grammar relative to a context of evaluation. The results of counterfactual evaluation are returned in a form consistent with the grammar's internal compositional semantics. By the method described above, the interpreter provides a grammar-external component in which inferences involving world knowledge have the potential to be more efficiently evaluated. Through the development of model-checking techniques, for instance, it could be shown whether or not well-formed formulas and constraints hold in larger models and move towards capturing more fine-grained modal inferences in a larger domain.
In this paper, we report on an experiment showing how the introduction of prosodic information from detailed syntactic structures into synthetic speech leads to better disambiguation of structurally ambiguous sentences. Using modifier attachment (MA) ambiguities and subject/object fronting (OF) in German as test cases, we show that prosody which is automatically generated from deep syntactic information provided by an HPSG generator can lead to considerable disambiguation effects, and can even override a strong semantics-driven bias. The architecture used in the experiment, consisting of the LKB generator running a large-scale grammar for German, a syntax-prosody interface module, and the speech synthesis system MARY is shown to be a valuable platform for testing hypotheses in intonation studies.
Townsend and Bever (2001) and Ferreira (2003) argue that simple templates representing the most commonly used orderings of arguments within a clause (e.g., NP-V-NP = Agent-Action-Patient) are used early in sentence comprehension to derive a preliminary interpretation before a full parse is completed. Sentences which match these templates (e.g., active sentences, subject clefts) are understood quickly and accurately, while sentences which deviate from the templates (e.g. passive sentences, object clefts) require additional processing to arrive at the correct interpretation. The present study extends the idea of canonical templates to the domain of noun phrases. I report on two experiments showing that possessive free relative clauses in English, which involve a non-canonical ordering of the head noun, are more difficult to understand than canonically headed noun phrases. I propose two reasons for this finding: (1) possessive free relatives deviate from the canonical template for interpreting noun phrases; and (2) the formal cues for interpreting possessive free relatives are relatively subtle. More generally I suggest that canonical templates help constrain mismatch in language by making certain kinds of mismatches costly for language users. Finally, I argue that evidence for canonical templates fits best within a parallel-architecture, constructionist theory of grammar.
Der vorliegende kurze Beitrag [hat] das Ziel, im diskutierten Problemrahmen konstitutive Aspekte der Horizonte, Konturen und Fluchtlinien einer dezidiert inter- bzw. transkulturellen Ausrichtung der Sprachwissenschaft anzudeuten und zu hinterfragen, ihre disziplinären Wege und Blickfelder anzulegen sowie über ein inter- bzw.transkulturelles ,,Paradigma" als "interkulturelle Linguistik" im Hinblick auf Profil, Tragfähigkeit und Reichweite zu reflektieren. All das soll dann zu einer extensionalen und intensionalen Bestimmung einer "interkulturellen Linguistik" hinführen.
In this paper I suggest an interface level of semantic representations, that on the one hand corresponds to morpho-syntactic entities such as phrase structure rules, function words and inflections, and that on the other hand can be mapped to lexical semantic representations that one ultimately needs in order to give good predictions about argument frames of lexical items. This interface level consists of basic constructions that can be decomposed into five sub-constructions (arg1-role, arg2-role ... arg5-role). I argue in favour of phrasal constructions in order to account for altering argument frames and maybe also coercion without having to use lexical rules or multiple lexical entries.
This paper examines the syntactic behavior of the Mauritian copula in predicative and extracted sentences. As it is the case in many languages, the Mauritian copula ete is absent in certain constructions: It only appears in extraction contexts. Our aim is to show that the postulation of a null copula, which has been proposed in various analyses, is inadequate for the Mauritian data. The phenomenon, as it is argued, rather lends itself to a strictly construction-based analysis within the framework of HPSG and is based on the distribution of weak pronouns and TAM markers.